February 2025
M T W T F S S
 12
3456789
10111213141516
17181920212223
2425262728  
February 13, 2025

Kenya: Maina Njenga, Former Leader of the Outlawed Kenyan Group, Was Not Attacked By Angry Crowd in 2025. Ignore Old, Unrelated Photo

Maina Njenga, former leader of the outlawed Kenyan group, was not attacked by angry crowd in 2025. Ignore old, unrelated photo

IN SHORT: A photo of the injured former leader of an outlawed Kenyan group is circulating on Facebook. Users who posted it claim that he has been attacked for not fully paying young people who disrupted a prayer meeting led by the former deputy president’s wife, Dorcas Rigathi. But the photo is old and unrelated to 2025 events.

A photo of Maina Njenga injured and in a wheelchair is doing the rounds on Facebook. Njenga is the former leader of an outlawed group known as “Mungiki” in Kenya

The photo shows Njenga with bandages, bloodied trousers and surrounded by people.

It is captioned: “BREAKING NEWS: Mungiki leader Maina Njenga beaten up badly by an angry crowd saying that they were not fully paid after disrupting Pastor Dorcas Rigathi Nyeri prayer event last weekend.”

The photo went viral just days after Njenga and his supporters disrupted a prayer meeting led by Dorcas Rigathi, wife of former deputy president Rigathi Gachagua, in Nyeri county in central Kenya. She was forced to leave the event in a hurry.

Gachagua later accused Kenyan president William Ruto’s government of using Njenga and the outlawed group to cause havoc in the Mt Kenya region. When used in a political context in Kenya, “Mt Kenya” usually refers to the communities in the central region, specifically the Kikuyu, Meru and Embu.

Gachagua is a Kikuyu from the region and has long sought to portray himself as Mt Kenya’s leader. He was Kenya’s deputy president until his impeachment in October 2024 after falling out with Ruto. The former deputy president was accused of corruption, inciting ethnic divisions and undermining Ruto’s government.

The Mungiki sect began as a religious group in the 1980s, with a membership mainly of young people from central Kenya. It later became a secretive criminal gang involved in killings, extortion, taxation and other illegal activities. In 2002, the government banned the group and launched a crackdown on its members.

Njenga renounced his membership in the group in 2009, but he remains a controversial figure. He has survived assassination attempts and has been imprisoned. He has also run unsuccessfully for political office, including in 2022, when he was backed by Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga.

The photo has also been posted here and here.

But does it show Njenga injured after being attacked in January 2025, as the posts suggest? We checked.

Photo old, unrelated

A reverse image search of the photo reveals that it is old and not related to the political events in the Mt Kenya region in 2025.

The Standard newspaper posted it on its website in 2014 under the headline: “We shot Maina Njenga, Mungiki’s ‘Jeshi’ claims.” The photo was captioned: “Maina Njenga after the shooting along Nairobi-Nyahururu Highway.”

A further search on Google using different keywords led us to other articles about the shooting incident. According to a 2014 article by Nation Africa, Njenga was in one of two private cars travelling from Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, to Nyahururu, about 188 kilometres north of the capital, when their vehicles were sprayed with bullets by unknown gunmen.

Five people died in the attack, while four others were injured. Njenga blamed police for the attack, but the police said it was unclear what had transpired and said they were investigating the incident.

A video showing the aftermath of the incident was also posted on YouTube by Citizen TV.

The photo used in the claim is old and unrelated.

By Africa Check

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *